


Redbeard, Roy and the Long Game

by SweetLateJuliet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetLateJuliet/pseuds/SweetLateJuliet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several “canonical” sources beyond <em>Sherlock</em> itself make me believe we haven’t seen Redbeard’s true significance yet. This gives me hope that, in terms of character development and narrative completeness, HLV is planned as a comma rather than a full stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redbeard, Roy and the Long Game

_Sherlock_ excerpts from [callie-ariane](http://tmblr.co/muvrsK5zeKNWKRSF7ZNk5vA)'s transcripts. We owe her big-time.

**Redbeard in S3**

(Just a recap; you know this bit already.)

In TSoT, Mycroft mentions the as-yet-unidentified Redbeard when Sherlock calls him from John and Mary’s wedding:

> MYCROFT: Oh, by the way, Sherlock – do you remember Redbeard?
> 
> SHERLOCK: I’m not a child any more, Mycroft.
> 
> MYCROFT: No, of course you’re not. Enjoy not getting involved, Sherlock.

In HLV, Sherlock discovers Mary threatening Magnussen in an attempt to keep her past secret from John; Mary shoots Sherlock after he recognizes her. Sherlock enters his mind palace and summons Redbeard, who we now see is an Irish setter from his childhood, to calm himself and stop himself from going into shock. The love between man/boy and dog is apparent, and it’s reasonable to assume that Sherlock, who initially wanted to be a pirate, gave the dog its name.

Sherlock then says, “They’re putting  _me_ down too, now. It’s no fun, is it?”

The questions I’m left with are: _How is the family dog related to Sherlock’s involvement in John and Mary’s wedding or relationship? Why is Mary shooting Sherlock similar to Redbeard being put down?_

Here’s a theory based on ACD, “expanded” Holmes canon, and episode commentary from TGG.

**Roy Presbury, Wolfhound**

In ACD’s “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” Holmes deduces that one Professor Presbury’s sudden strange creeping and climbing behavior is caused by a serum he’s started taking that promises “rejuvenescence and the elixir of life.” It’s derived from the langur monkey, which causes Presbury’s odd behavior. The premise itself doesn’t modernize easily, and the literal plot is used as a brief in-joke in TEH:

> _(in surgery)_
> 
> JOHN: … but I’m recommending a course of …
> 
> _(in 221B)_
> 
> SHERLOCK: … monkey glands. But enough about Professor Presbury. Tell us more about  your case, Mr. Harcourt.

However, relevant to this discussion, Holmes’ first clue in the Presbury case is the changed behavior of Presbury’s dog. He says:

> “A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others.”

He explains that Professor Presbury’s devoted wolfhound, Roy, has twice attacked him. Watson suggests the dog is ill; Holmes responds, “But he attacks no one else, nor does he apparently molest his master, save on very special occasions” - as it turns out, when Presbury’s on the monkey juice. Roy the wolfhound’s strange behavior is a result of his master’s secret activities.

**Mr Holmes’ Affair**

The Holmes parents are almost nonexistent in ACD canon, so  _Sherlock_ has already far eclipsed this source material by showing them in S3 as much as it has.

We know that the  _Sherlock_ showrunners draw from all Holmes adaptations as “canon.” In the 1985 film _Young Sherlock Holmes_ , young Sherlock has a drugged flashback indicating that he discovered his father’s affair (partial transcript in [this post](http://thegreenmagpie.tumblr.com/post/35788091453/sherlocks-backstory)), which caused family strife.

The DVD commentary to  _Sherlock_ ’s TGG indicates that such a scene was planned for TGG:

> Mark: We cut down this bit slightly. There was a reference to, um, their mutual strange childhood and the fact that you had, um, that Sherlock had rather spoiled the family atmosphere. It’s gone for time, but in the end I think that might be quite nice. Because we don’t want to give too much away about this. Their past.
> 
> Benedict: I discovered that my father was having—Oh, um, uh, can I say?
> 
> Mark: You can say.
> 
> Benedict: We might not have it later? I don’t know.
> 
> Mark: Yeah, maybe.
> 
> Benedict: But I can say in this DVD?
> 
> Mark: Maybe.
> 
> Benedict: Okay, well, then I won’t say.
> 
> [Everyone laughs.]

([source](http://finalproblem.tumblr.com/post/19327226161/the-commentary-about-the-affair-comes-from-them))

Although neither Mark nor Benedict explicitly says young Sherlock discovered that his father was having  _an affair_ , this seems the most reasonable interpretation. “Balance of probability,” as Mycroft would say.

**So What Happened with Redbeard?**

Family pets are typically put down when they’re judged too old or ill, but this doesn’t seem analogous to Sherlock being shot by Mary. A family dog might also be put down because of aggressive behavior.

I believe Redbeard became aggressive in relation to Mr Holmes’ affair, menacing either Mr Holmes or his partner. (I don’t have basis to guess at the specifics, but imagine Mr Holmes locked the dog away during his rendezvous, or the lover was a family acquaintance who lashed out when the dog was suspiciously familiar during a public event, or …) Redbeard’s aggression resulted in the dog being put down.

Like ACD’s adult Holmes with Presbury’s wolfhound, young BBC Sherlock deduced the secret in whole or in part based on Redbeard’s uncharacteristic aggression.

(Redbeard Holmes is an Irish Setter, which to me looks like a camera-friendlier version of an Irish Wolfhound. [[breed comparison](http://dog-breeds.findthebest.com/compare/85-88/Irish-Setter-vs-Irish-Wolfhound)])

Young Sherlock announced his father’s secret to the family, which caused strife. (Perhaps this happened around a family dinner, with eager young Sherlock not having any idea of the bombshell he was dropping…) In his naiveté, he might’ve even publicly aired this dirty laundry. It’s also possible that Mrs Holmes, an adult and a genius like her children, already knew of or suspected her husband’s affair, was ignoring it or addressing it quietly, and didn’t appreciate Sherlock’s revelation.

If this is true, the quality of Mr Holmes’ character depends on the timing of Sherlock’s revelation and the circumstances of Redbeard’s death. Before he was “outed,” Father Holmes might have allowed the dog to be put down because of the “unexplained” aggression in order to protect his secret. Alternatively, the dog might have bitten Mr Holmes or the lover, and this could have made the dog’s destruction legally necessary, regardless of the family’s preference. (I don’t know anything about UK dog-bite law and imagine it might also be location-dependent.)

In TEH and HLV, we see that the Holmes parents are still together (no reason to think either is a stepparent). They also, to all appearances, have a good relationship. Therefore, it seems that young Sherlock’s deduction didn’t save his dog, caused his family pain, and didn’t ultimately change the fate of his parents’ relationship.

We know that Sherlock immediately deduced that Mary is, among other things, a liar. Part of the discomfort around HLV is that Sherlock never seems to discuss this with John. But, though John is no Sherlock, he’s still smart, and he’s spent far more time with Mary than Sherlock. John probably suspects something about her, Sherlock assumes (perhaps like his mother knew so many years ago), so he doesn’t raise his suspicions before the wedding. Even after Mary shoots Sherlock, he reiterates the idea of “you knew” to John and doesn’t try to make John leave her. After all, the last time he meddled in a romantic pairing’s secrets, he caused significant pain and didn’t (he thinks) change the outcome. (Eh, I don’t know, that part’s still fuzzy to me.)

In this context, Mycroft’s use of “Redbeard” as shorthand for “don’t get involved” makes sense, and Sherlock’s “I’m not a child anymore” means he’s not naively going to blurt out his deduction if it will cause pain. (This is most believable if Sherlock does actually care about Mary, which I do think is the case.)

It also explains how Sherlock sees Mary shooting him as them “putting [him] down too”; he’s the collateral damage of secrets in a two-person relationship he’s not part of.

**The Long Game**

If this theory is correct, we have a mysterious character, Redbeard, who is introduced as an unknown in S3 and explained on a simple level (“it’s the family dog!”), but who has a much more nuanced story coming in S4. That gives hope that there’s a plan for other questions left at the end of S3 to be resolved in a similar manner.


End file.
